I have a hraman magnafire insert that I installed in my fireplace a year ago. This is my second heating season with it. Here is my issue. I burn wood in this stove probably 2 months of the heating season and anthracite the rest. I have a section of SS liner that goes up into about the first smoke tile. I swept out my chimney two weeks ago and had a thin coating of creosote on all sides of my 12"X12" teracota flue. The creosote swept right off but what concerns me is where is that creosote falling to. Will it pile up around my SS liner and wait to light off like a rocket or will it fall harmlessly down into the smoke shelf?? This is something that has been bothering me as I sit here next to my crackling wood fire. I should also note even though my chimney itself is much larger than the 7" oval off the stove, it always has a good draft. Thanks!

try calling one of Harmon's responsive customer tech reps at heath N home technologies (that's a Joke for those of us who know Harmon)

anyway, creosote is dangerous to be sure... but assuming you had your chimney cleaned within the last few years (something you should do if your burning wood) and you have a good terra cotta liner and good chimney your probably worrying to much when you have the chimney cleaned of course some of the flakes are going down your stove pipe where you will vac them out. if you had some photo's looking up and/or down the chimney we could see what kind of build up were talking about here... the major problems happen when this creosote builds up to thick levels of caked on cement (not just a few flaky flakes and a haze of black on the terra cotta)... your chimney (and many others) could have a fire in it without any problem what so ever (you might even be oblivious to its occurrence)... its when that creosote is so thick it turns into lava that pours downward into your living area where the major concern is!

I don't mean to make light of something that you should and are aware of and concerned with... I just don't want you loosing sleep if were only talking about a lil black haze and some flaky flakes. You have a great liner! (they build stoves, chimnias, ovens, black smithing blast furnaces, etc. out of terra cotta!)

Thanks for the replies guys. I sweep my chimney 2X a year. Once before heating season and once around Christmas. (I do most of my wood burning in late October through middle December) the creosote I had was basically just enough to turn the flue black. Unfortunately no pics. When I pulled up the brush a few flakes the size of pencil points were on my sweatshirt but the flue itself is back to basically plain teracota after a couple brush strokes. I'm not sure exactly how to shop vac the bottom of the chimney without removing the stove. I've swept up in the top of the stove and up the 7 foot or so of oval pipe/liner. Where the liner/ "smoke pipe" goes up through the damper, I packed the remaining open portion of the damper with Roxul mineral wool and fiberglass like described in the installation manual. What I'm worried of is the creosote that falls to the bottom of the chimney past the liner that lays in the smoke shelf and may build up around the "smoke pipe" and on top of the insulation blocking the remaining damper area. I may be thinking way to far into this, but just want to be on the safe side. Thanks again